Mark Foote

You're making me hungry, niveQ. Doesn't sound like hypnic jerk-- that's a phenomena connected with losing volitive control of the muscles in falling asleep, where the muscles contract suddenly. There's a coordination between the transverse muscles of the abdomen, transverse muscles of the chest, and the muscles of the pelvic floor as pressure in the fluid ball of the abdomen displaces the fascia of the lower back to support the spine. That can involve the legs and arms, as well as the neck and head, but I've never experienced anything like what you're describing. The coordination I'm describing is supported by the ilio-tibial bands and the fascia connected with the quadratus lumborum muscles, so along the sides of the body; you might look there to stabilize your experience next time it's happening. Not sure what this means: "It does this to wherever the energy feels it is located."

St. Thomas, come out and play; for the martyred one, a wake shall we have

gathers dust on shelf urn in cave in the desert St. Thomas, come out!

let's categorize extemporize, vaporize- hmmm; went too far, there

Rara, I think intention is the difficulty. There's really only one effective way to let go of intention that I know of, and that's to relax and be where I am. The sense of location moves and shifts with sense contact; it's the heart-mind of classical literature. In the freedom of the heart-mind to move and shift as though in open space, waking up and falling asleep takes place.

creased thoughts, and trousers planing through the city lights, high with the thought of love

Owledge, that pony had way too much of something... I used to avoid sugar like the plague, but it didn't seem to help my digestion to do so. I think sweet with bitter may be necessary to keep the sour dough in my appendix happy; I don't know. I will say that I now use a cusine art coffee machine, and something like Tao Meow's three teaspoons of coffee per cup (to about 1 1/2 cup of water, actually- pretty thin). If I keep the machine clean, and use the right beans (predominately light roast, I like the Kona blend from Thanksgiving Coffee company up in Fort Bragg, CA), the coffee tastes good to me with nothing added. That's key for me, that the coffee taste good, and that's why I'm stuck on my cusine art machine, although I'd like to try Taomeow's pot. I add to it anyway sometimes, cream if I haven't eaten breakfast and the morning is already late, sugar or honey in the late afternoon, preferably something like rapadura sugar if possible. I probably should try to eat chocolate without sugar more often, to make sure that what I'm starting from tastes good to me. However, as I noted above, something as bitter as unsweetened chocolate doesn't seem to be that good for my digestion. I wonder.

When someone other than the original is supplying their own notion of what they thought the original said, judgement comes in, in the place of accurate description of cause and effect. All three time frames are the source of trouble according to Gautama the Shakyan: "Craving for things visible, craving for things audible, craving for things that may be smelt, tasted, touched, for things in memory recalled-- these are the things in this world that are dear, that are pleasant. There does Craving take its rise, there does it dwell. Pre-occupation about things seen, preoccupation about things heard, preoccupation about things smelt, tasted, tangible, about things in memory recalled-- these are the things in this world that are dear, that are pleasant. There does Craving take its rise, there does it dwell. Deliberating about things seen, deliberating about things heard, deliberating about things smelt, tasted, tangible, about things in memory recalled-- these are the things in this world that are dear, that are pleasant. There does Craving take its rise, there does it dwell. (Digha-Nikaya II 309-310, Pali Text Society volume II pg 341) And again: That which we will..., and that which we intend to do and that wherewithal we are occupied-- this becomes an object for the persistence of consciousness. The object being there, there comes to be a station of consciousness. Consciousness being stationed and growing, rebirth of renewed existence takes place in the future, and here from birth, decay-and-death, grief, lamenting, suffering, sorrow, and despair come to pass. Such is the uprising of this entire mass of ill. Even if we do not will, or intend to do, and yet are preoccupied about something, this too becomes an object for the persistence of consciousness... whence birth... takes place. But if we do neither will, nor intend to do, nor are occupied about something, there is no becoming of an object for the persistence of consciousness. The object being absent, there comes to be no station of consciousness. Consciousness not being stationed nor growing, no rebirth of renewed existence takes place in the future, and herefrom birth, decay-and-death, grief, lamenting, suffering, sorrow, and despair cease. Such is the ceasing of this entire mass of ill. (SN II 65, Pali Text Society volume II pg 45) When he says "rebirth of renewed existence" (or "no rebirth of renewed existence"), is he talking about actual rebirth, or something else, I wonder? It's not clear to me- maybe both?

As far as "practice and verification"? Yes it does sound like ol' Nan-yueh is speaking of two distinct phenomena that are linearly related. I know Gautama spoke of "knowledge and freedom" as the nineth and tenth elements of the path leading to the cessation of suffering for the adept; that sounds very similar, although whether or not practice has anything to do with knowledge, and verification with freedom, I couldn't say. I'm sure I'll be thinking about that. When I'm thinking. I should mention that as far as I'm concerned, the cessation of suffering is only a concern when suffering exists; Gautama's four truths about suffering only have meaning if suffering exists. As opposed to the "unenlightened life is suffering, but once you get the sense of "I am" you are out that door nevermore to be burdened" point of view. If there's suffering, then knowledge and freedom can be realized, practice and verification can be undefiled, the path leading to the cessation of suffering has meaning. Not a thing to be desired, knowledge and freedom, practice and verification, but very likely coming to a being in the neighborhood, soon.

"Deliverance from thought without grasping" was something Gautama the Buddha spoke of, sounds similar to: "I used to sit for hours together, with nothing but the I am in my mind and soon the peace and joy and deep all-embracing love became my normal state. In it all disappeared: myself, my guru, the life I lived, the world around me. Only peace remained, and unfathomable silence." Maybe there comes a moment when the mind assumes its natural role among the senses, and maybe that role is sometimes deliverance from thought without grasping for hours. Maybe there is a time and place for everything, after all: 'Nan-yueh said, "Practice and verification are not nonexistent, they are not to be defiled."''

two dollars a pint the carousel animals chase each other's tails

I was actually thinking of you, Ya Mu, and of your remarks on another thread about being in a lab where they measured you going through states usually associated with sleep in your practice. I agree that a relinquishment of the mental is involved, yet I am now turning on the experience of the senses as such; in particular, the sense of equalibrium, the sense of gravity, and the sense of place associated with muscles, joints, and ligaments (proprioception), along with the sense of the mind. One among many senses, the mind, and I feel better for having come to see that this is so. Spotless, I appreciate your patience. To the extent that the phenomena of the heart-mind that moves, that shifts, and that is a part of action in the absence of volition is a phenomena of trance, I hope that our remarks may be relevant. Ya Mu, when I finally got around to talking about action in the absence of volition in my piece about Fuxi's Poem (finished it last month), I realized that the zazen that gets up and walks around is somehow, at least for me, associated with a practice Gautama put forward in connection the induction of the further meditative states: "[One] dwells, having suffused the first quarter [of the world] with friendliness, likewise the second, likewise the third, likewise the fourth; just so above, below, across; [one] dwells having suffused the whole world everywhere, in every way, with a mind of friendliness that is far-reaching, wide-spread, immeasurable, without enmity, without malevolence. [One] dwells having suffused the first quarter with a mind of compassion… sympathetic joy… equanimity that is far-reaching, wide-spread, immeasurable, without enmity, without malevolence." (MN I 38, Pali Text Society volume I pg 48) Gautama described the first of the further meditative states as "the excellence" of the heart's release through compassion, the second as "the excellence" of the heart's release through sympathetic joy, and the third as "the excellence" of the heart's release through equanimity (the "excellence" of the heart's release through friendliness he described as "the beautiful") The place and things is the practice of "shikantaza", as Kobun Chino Otogawa once said, yet as he pointed out the range of the things that enter into the practice easily exceeds the boundaries of the senses.

Spotless, I think we're talking apples and oranges. I'm trying to use trance in the sense that Erickson used it, I think that's closest to my experience, and he's not talking about a deadening or a street act. He was a psychotherapist who used hypnosis, but he felt that trance heightened the senses, and for that reason (and in order to control his own pain from early polio), he would spend time each day finding trance in himself: 'I go into trances so that I will be more sensitive to the intonations and inflections of my patients' speech. And to enable me to hear better, see better.'" (that's from Wikipedia here) Neither was Gautama talking about a deadening; remember that Gautama's attainment of the arupa jhanas and of the final "meditative state" ("the cessation of (habitiual activity in) perception and sensation") was synonymous with his enlightenment. So I think you are thinking one thing when I say trance, and I am meaning another. The fact that anyone can enter a state of trance with minimal assistance from circumstance or from a talented stage hypnotist only points to the accessibility of these states and to their importance as a fundamental part of human nature. What they have to do with well-being is the question, and I think they have everything to do with well-being, just as the experience of the heart-mind at the tan-t'ien or elsewhere has everything to do with well-being. I will say that I think what goes on in waking up, goes on in falling asleep. It's never been helpful to me to aim at waking up, to the exclusion of falling asleep.

freeform, thanks for that. I guess my point would be that as far as the heart-mind at the tan-tien, no amount of physical relaxation can actually bring the heart-mind to the tan-t'ien, but only the relinquishment of volition. Regarding trance, although the translation of "jhana" adopted by the Pali Text Society by the middle-length volumes was "meditation", "jhana" was translated "trance" when the kindred sayings were published thirty years earlier. Semantics? Here's the description of the first rupa (material) jhana: “…as a skilled bath-attendant or (bath-attendant) apprentice, having sprinkled bath-powder into a bronze vessel, might knead it while repeatedly sprinkling it with water until the ball of lather had taken up moisture, was drenched with moisture, suffused with moisture inside and out but without any oozing. Even so… does (a person) saturate, permeate, suffuse this very body with the rapture and joy that are born of aloofness; there is no part of (the) whole body that is not suffused with the rapture and joy born of aloofness. While (such a person) is thus diligent, ardent, self-resolute, those memories and aspirations that are worldly are got rid of; by getting rid of them, the mind is inwardly settled, calmed, focused, concentrated.” (MN III 92-93, PTS pg 132-134) This is, to me, a description of what it feels like when the heart-mind is in the lower abdomen. The only words I've been able to find in the first four Nikayas about how such a concentration comes about are: “"...making self-surrender (one's) object of thought, (one) lays hold of concentration, lays hold of one-pointedness of mind." (SN V 200, Pali Text Society V 176) Which is not to say that "making self-surrender (one's) object of thought" induces a state of concentration or one-pointedness of mind, but only that it's conducive. At least that's my reading. About trance, I wrote this in my introduction to the material quoted previously: The psychotherapist Milton Erickson held that trance is an everyday occurrence for everyone. Getting lost in a train of thought, or absorbed in an athletic endeavor, he described as examples of trance. In his practice, Erickson regularly invited his clients to enter into trance, out of regard for the benefit of the client. That a client entered into trance in response to such an invitation, Erickson viewed as a result of the unconscious decision of the client, quite outside of Erikson’s control. Erickson was famous for what came to be called "the confusion technique" in the induction of hypnosis, and in particular for his "handshake induction". By subtly interrupting someone in the middle of the expected course of an habitual activity, like shaking hands, Erickson enabled them to enter a state of trance. For Erickson, the confusion technique could also be applied through engaging the patient’s mind with a sentence whose meaning could not be found through the normal interpretation of the words and syntax (engaging the patient’s mind in a transderivational search). Mention of the induction of trance, which was explicitly recognized and described in the teachings of Gautama the Buddha and was obliquely referenced in the remarks of Bodhidharma, the first Zen teacher in China (entering "the Way" in Denkoroku), is largely absent in the Chinese and Japanese literature of Zen. At the same time, instances of sentences whose meaning cannot be found through the normal interpretation of the words and whose utterance may therefore enable the induction of trance in the listener are ubiquitous in the literature. The induction of trance serves to heighten the experience of the senses (a fact that Erickson noted), and thereby to allow a person under the right circumstances to discover activity in the senses that underlie the experience of self. Neuroscientists Olaf Blanke and Christine Mohr hypothesized that the tactile/proprioceptive/kinesthetic and vestibular senses in combination with the ocular sense are principally responsible for what is regarded as the experience of self. Particularly important to their conclusion was the observation that persons who experience themselves as being simultaneously in two places at once (a particular kind of out-of-body experience) appear to have a dysfunction in one or another of these senses. (the references are in the original, here) Long post, but I will add this story: 'The Patriarch asked, "Where do you come from?" Nan-yueh answered, "From Mt. Sung". The Patriarch said, "What is it that comes like this?" Nan-yueh replied, "To say anything would be wrong". The Patriarch said, "Then is it contingent on practice and verification?" Nan-yueh said, "Practice and verification are not nonexistent, they are not to be defiled."' ("Dogen's Manuals of Zen Meditation", by Carl Bielefeldt, pg 138)

I wrote about this recently, including Cheng Man-Ch'ing's advice: "The literal meaning of the word "ch’i" is "breath". Cheng described how, once the entire body is relaxed, a further relaxation of the chest will allow the ch’i to sink to the tan-t’ien. Relaxation of the chest depends on a relinquishment of volitive activity affecting the movement of inhalation and exhalation; given such a relinquishment, the location of awareness may indeed shift to the lower abdomen and include proprioception there and elsewhere in the body, much as Cheng described." (from here) Another thing that says is, ch'i is a phenomena of trance; the relinquishment of volition cannot be made to happen, and in the relinquishment of volition a state of trance exists. That's why no one can actually say exactly how the heart-mind ends up at the tan-t'ien; the process is different for different people, and different for the same person from day to day. My writing has served to point me toward the relaxed distinction of the senses, including the sense of equalibrium, the sense of gravity, and the sense of place in muscle, bone, and ligament tissue that is proprioception. Oh, and did I mention the mind: the mind as a sense, in the relaxed distinction of the senses. It can't be done, but it happens naturally, and it helps me to see that I don't have to know anything for it to happen.

God too will cower when the mighty Quinn gets here sled gone bad, big time (the Dylan basement tapes are now available...)

"My Guru ordered me to attend to the sense 'I am' and to give attention to nothing else. I just obeyed. I did not follow any particular course of breathing, or meditation, or study of scriptures. Whatever happened, I would turn away my attention from it and remain with the sense 'I am', it may look too simple, even crude. My only reason for doing it was that my Guru told me so. Yet it worked! Obedience is a powerful solvent of all desires and fears." (that's from here) The key in that short description for me would be the words "the sense 'I am'"-- Nisargadatta is referring to a sense. Among the senses I am drawn to attend to are the ones alluded to in case 37 of the "Blue Cliff Record": "To unfurl the red flag of victory over your head, whirl the twin swords behind your ears—if not for a discriminating eye and a familiar hand, how could anyone be able to succeed?" ("The Blue Cliff Record", trans. T. and J.C. Cleary, case 37 pg 274) That would be equilibrioception (through the vestibular organs- the twin swords behind the ears), the relationship between the ocular and the vestibular and proprioceptive senses (the discriminating eye), and the proprioceptive sense (the familiar hand). Unfurling the red flag of victory over one's head I guess I would associate with the relationship between the sense of gravity and the vestibular and proprioceptive senses, the way we fall upright. Sounds cold, don't it, but what do you think the sense of "I am" is? "Neuroscientists Olaf Blanke and Christine Mohr hypothesized that the tactile/proprioceptive/kinesthetic and vestibular senses in combination with the ocular sense are principally responsible for what is regarded as the experience of self. Particularly important to their conclusion was the observation that persons who experience themselves as being simultaneously in two places at once (a particular kind of out-of-body experience) appear to have a dysfunction in one or another of these senses." (that's from here; the paper by Blanke and Mohr is here)

a game of whispers on All-Hallows Eve- all's well, come day of the dead

Thanks for sharing the video, Stig, and good luck in the competition. I'm really in no position to comment, except to say that the two lessons I learned in judo still seem applicable: 1) closing with the opponent is the art; 2) compassion for the opponent allows for action in the absence of volition. I had a good teacher. He stood 5'4" (maybe), weighed about 140 lbs (I think), and won Sumo matches because he could leap and knock his opponent's feet out from under them, and they hit the mat before he did. In the S.F. Bay Area, the judo association sent people to him to learn how to be gentle; he was a great man.

unperturbed by time the riffles and runs of creeks flashing in the sun

a dolorous blow to the one that never was but will be again

I remember a friend who I used to share a table with returning from a dance with a gentleman? and exclaiming, "damn, that man had an erection-- that was rude!". Maybe I belong to a different generation, but that woman could grind, liked to freak and so did I. Didn't cause me to have an erection because I was focused on the connection I felt with her on the inside, which was and is the ecstatic thing about free-form contact rock and roll to me. I have danced with a lot of women who weren't expecting or intending anything sexual in spite of pelvic contact. Sometimes there was a sexual element, but it was not intended, that's part of the beauty of it. Why go into something expecting an outcome; why not stop doing and realize everything being done? I am falling upright on the floor when I dance, and when two people are falling upright in connection with each other, it can be slam, it can be freak: I don't get to know.

she loves hot dogs though especially with mustard relishes them, yes

can't hold a candle to the poets here-abouts they think in terms of feelings they move in epic shouts I'm set down like an old tree from the roots up to the crown and I move only in starlight in the shadows underground